Category Archives: Intellectualism

Big Man Barack

Africa, Barack Obama, Constitution, Democrats, Economy, Ethics, IMMIGRATION, Intellectualism, Israel, Journalism, Law

To go by the dictionary, and “within the context of political science, big man, big man syndrome, or bigmanism refers to corrupt and autocratic rule of countries by a single person.”

Back in February, Democratic Senator Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), “a stern constitutional scholar who has always stood up for the legislative branch in its role in checking the power of the White House,” warned about Obama’s executive-branch power grab.

According to Politico, “Byrd complained about Obama’s decision to create White House offices on health reform, urban affairs policy, and energy and climate change. Byrd said such positions ‘can threaten the Constitutional system of checks and balances. At the worst, White House staff have taken direction and control of programmatic areas that are the statutory responsibility of Senate-confirmed officials.'”

Byrd is an old Southern gentleman after whom Republicans are always chasing for his past indiscretions. George Will follows in Byrd’s footsteps in making a similar point, only later in the game, and leveled at a president he did not support.

“The Obama administration is … careless regarding constitutional values and is acquiring a tincture of lawlessness,” writes Will. After detailing the flouting of contracts, the use of TARP as a slush fund, and the bullying of business, Will concludes:

“The Obama administration’s agenda of maximizing dependency involves political favoritism cloaked in the raiment of ‘economic planning’ and ‘social justice’ that somehow produce results superior to what markets produce when freedom allows merit to manifest itself, and incompetence to fail. The administration’s central activity — the political allocation of wealth and opportunity — is not merely susceptible to corruption, it is corruption.”

Riz Khan Interviews Amos Oz On Al Jazeera

Intellectualism, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Journalism, Literature

And an ‘A’ For Al-Jazeera Again.

Two exceptionally bright men, Riz Khan and Amos Oz, talk. If I’m stating the obvious, it’s because it’s rare to see an example of such objective, intelligent journalism in the American news media.

I’m an admirer of Oz’s work. His early books I devoured back in Israel, in Hebrew, naturally. (The man was extremely handsome). Oz is an exceptional writer; his books translate well too. I recommend them.

I’ve always thought of Oz as a dove–a man of the Left. But this is what the old Left used to be: reasonable, patriotic, fair (and manly).
Oz’s use of the English language—a second language—is charming, precise, and colorful. He exemplifies the older Israeli intelligentsia.

It’s a shame I can’t get Al Jazeera. American “news” channels are an example of cretinism (and the “V” factor) in action.

Part I:

Part II:

Updated: Looking To Children To Lead

Conservatism, Education, Family, Intellectualism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Pop-Culture, Private Property, Republicans

Speaking of spooky children, the hallmark of a progressive or left-liberal is a philosophical adulation of The Child. The Child is said to possess uncanny prescience; a primordial, pristine, un-spoilt wisdom. The same awe is accorded to the Nobel Savage, and to the natural world.

This explains why Republicans often have a “wunderkind” in the wings to parade and look up to. These days, it’s the barely-out-of short pants CPAC star, Jonathan Krohn, who’s precocious and off-putting. Krohn is an author no less. The treatise is “Define Conservatism.” From the mouth of the babe himself, the book sounds childish and simplistic in tone and in metaphor. Just what Boobus loves.

Understandably, left-liberals have been slobbering over Krohn as well. To their credit, they’ve not produced a prototype of their own yet.

It’s a repulsive specter. It’s not new. I commented on it in a three-pronged column, in 2002. The column is “The Importance Of Boundaries.” The sub-heading is “Crossover Kids”:

“Permissive liberals and people who need Braille to understand a well-aimed barb will fume at the words of author Florence King: ‘…children have no business expressing opinions on anything except, ‘Do you have enough room in the toes?’ But true-blue cultural conservatism puts a premium on the proper boundaries between children and adults. Such boundaries are essential to the moral hygiene of a society. It is from the progressive, libertine parent that we would expect a child of such narcissism and precocity that he or she thinks of adults as his peers, and takes to preaching to his elders.”

“But no, some of the most hubris-stricken kids are emerging as commentators from so-called conservative quarters. The real cultural conservative knows that even in the unlikely case that the child is the new H.L. Mencken, and is smarter than all the adults around him, respect necessitates that he bide his time. Even the intellectually gifted take years to synthesize intellectual material and make it their own. This process is a culmination of insight, life experience, humility, and authentic intelligence.”

“The cultural conservative adult who lets a kid be a pal and peer is a liberal. He cannot claim to be a cultural conservative. He must, moreover, own up to being mired in self-contradiction. Writing on the topic of Western Civilization, historian Alan Charles Kors reminds us that avoiding self-contradiction is the touchstone of truth—being mired in self-contradiction, the touchstone of error. To the Greek philosophers, to be mired in self-contradiction was to be ‘less than human, less than coherent, less than sane.'”

Update (Feb. 28): I just can’t win, can I? The reader hereunder vows to seek out the kid’s coloring-in book in the library. Lost is my meta-argument against the process of looking to a kid for answers, however endowed in IQ he might be.

Seeking sagacity in a child’s words is perverted, unconservative.
The whole point of this post is that you NOT be piqued by a child; that you not be proud of such precocity. Look to real philosopher Kings for eternal truths. Take the time to rediscover The Federalist or Anti-Federalist papers. So long as you have not read the the words of real sages, you have no business looking for kicks in the kibitzing of kids.
Of course, you have every right to, but little reason to.

THEY MUST BE HOMESCHOOLED. Blogger John was alluding to this delightful clip (I’m posting it hereunder), making the rounds on YouTube. Two precious, fiscally conservative cuties hear that they owe $800 billion. The little boy is especially eager to tease out the details, and is outraged when he gets the goods. Unlike creepy, adult-emulating Krohn, these babes act their age, and are absolutely natural. There is nothing put-on or fake about their conduct. These are kids getting some bad news about a stolen piggy bank.

I would agree that children are naturally acquisitive and, like all normal people before entering the public school, guard what is rightfully theirs.

But there’s more to it. What you have here is an example of decent parenting. In fact, this clip very clearly exemplifies the boundary argument made in this post. The adult is teaching the children a lesson about private property and its theft.

I would further argue that the parent eliciting the little people’s outrage by telling them of the $800 billion they are about to be robbed of—he is the good guy in all this. He probably home schools the two tots. This is clearly a man who, while not indoctrinating his kids, does instill in them right from wrong.

Pay attention to the disparaging comments the filming father gets from YouTubers. Addled by psychobabble, posters protest the emotional harm done to the children; the sentiment shared on the chatboard is that upsetting children is wrong.

Well, the clip has been removed. My guess is that the dad who posted it thought Obama’s New New Deal outrageous, and his kids’ outburst appropriate. The cretins watching it disapproved and disagreed with dad. Maybe father feared Big Brother would removed his kids. … Not that it has happened before.

Updated: And It Came To Pass, That THE TIMES Parodied Obama, And Behold It Was Very Good, And Truly I Say Unto You, It Rocketh!

Barack Obama, Britain, English, Intellectualism, Journalism, Media

The blog’s title is Rob Stove’s, the epistolary Wizard of Oz.

Gerard Baker’s lampoon of Obama was read on Fox-News’ Hannity & Colmes. Mr. Hannity credited “My producer,” rather than its talented author (who narrated). The banal front men and women of American punditry prefer not to doff a metaphoric hat to their betters. In fact, unless absolutely irresistible—as this piece surely is—they prefer that the less known about ideas not their own, the better. Dimming debate so that they are never outshone is the impetus behind the men and women of America’s malpracticing media. The result: a paucity of original thinking in American public life. Mencken would have been unemployed today, because brilliant (and non-partisan).

Satirical writing such as Baker’s is seldom undertaken by American pundits, whose writing is strictly prosaic and pedestrian. Likewise, it remains unappreciated by readers. Rob tells me that “in Australia there seems to be this notion that if a writer uses nuance, he must be homosexual.” I’d argue that this perception is rooted in a culture that still values manliness, albeit in its symbolic manifestation. Anointed public intellectuals in the US are almost always the “girlie boys”—down to their trendy eye wear, fussy falsettos, and pasty faces. Their writing is similarly androgynous.

(Vastly inferior, my “Mephisto’s Medicare: A Parable” was written many years ago when the muse struck. More “prosaic” versions thereof were published in the Calgary Herald and Vancouver Sun. I take consolation in knowing I’d do better today.)

Update (July 28): Please note “Mild Colonial Boy’s” comments hereunder. I missed the part of the broadcast to which he refers. My bad. Therefore, he is correct; I may have been hasty, but heck, 99 percent of the time my comments obtain. It is most unusual for the cable cohort to air, much less credit, original thinking.

HE VENTURED FORTH TO BRING LIGHT TO THE WORLD
By Gerard Baker

And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.

The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow.

When he was twelve years old, they found him in the temple in the City of Chicago, arguing the finer points of community organisation with the Prophet Jeremiah and the Elders. And the Elders were astonished at what they heard and said among themselves: “Verily, who is this Child that he opens our hearts and minds to the audacity of hope?”

In the great Battles of Caucus and Primary he smote the conniving Hillary, wife of the deposed King Bill the Priapic and their barbarian hordes of Working Class Whites.

And so it was, in the fullness of time, before the harvest month of the appointed year, the Child ventured forth – for the first time – to bring the light unto all the world.

He travelled fleet of foot and light of camel, with a small retinue that consisted only of his loyal disciples from the tribe of the Media. He ventured first to the land of the Hindu Kush, where the

Taleban had harboured the viper of al-Qaeda in their bosom, raining terror on all the world.

And the Child spake and the tribes of Nato immediately loosed the Caveats that had previously bound them. And in the great battle that ensued the forces of the light were triumphant. For as long as the Child stood with his arms raised aloft, the enemy suffered great blows and the threat of terror was no more.

From there he went forth to Mesopotamia where he was received by the great ruler al-Maliki, and al-Maliki spake unto him and blessed his Sixteen Month Troop Withdrawal Plan even as the imperial warrior Petraeus tried to destroy it.

And lo, in Mesopotamia, a miracle occurred. Even though the Great Surge of Armour that the evil Bush had ordered had been a terrible mistake, a waste of vital military resources and doomed to end in disaster, the Child’s very presence suddenly brought forth a great victory for the forces of the light.

And the Persians, who saw all this and were greatly fearful, longed to speak with the Child and saw that the Child was the bringer of peace. At the mention of his name they quickly laid aside their intrigues and beat their uranium swords into civil nuclear energy ploughshares.

From there the Child went up to the city of Jerusalem, and entered through the gate seated on an ass. The crowds of network anchors who had followed him from afar cheered “Hosanna” and waved great palm fronds and strewed them at his feet.

In Jerusalem and in surrounding Palestine, the Child spake to the Hebrews and the Arabs, as the Scripture had foretold. And in an instant, the lion lay down with the lamb, and the Israelites and Ishmaelites ended their long enmity and lived for ever after in peace.

As word spread throughout the land about the Child’s wondrous works, peoples from all over flocked to hear him; Hittites and Abbasids; Obamacons and McCainiacs; Cameroonians and Blairites.

And they told of strange and wondrous things that greeted the news of the Child’s journey. Around the world, global temperatures began to decline, and the ocean levels fell and the great warming was over.

The Great Prophet Algore of Nobel and Oscar, who many had believed was the anointed one, smiled and told his followers that the Child was the one generations had been waiting for.

And there were other wonderful signs. In the city of the Street at the Wall, spreads on interbank interest rates dropped like manna from Heaven and rates on credit default swaps fell to the ground as dead birds from the almond tree, and the people who had lived in foreclosure were able to borrow again.

Black gold gushed from the ground at prices well below $140 per barrel. In hospitals across the land the sick were cured even though they were uninsured. And all because the Child had pronounced it.

And this is the testimony of one who speaks the truth and bears witness to the truth so that you might believe. And he knows it is the truth for he saw it all on CNN and the BBC and in the pages of The New York Times.

Then the Child ventured forth from Israel and Palestine and stepped onto the shores of the Old Continent. In the land of Queen Angela of Merkel, vast multitudes gathered to hear his voice, and he preached to them at length.

But when he had finished speaking his disciples told him the crowd was hungry, for they had had nothing to eat all the hours they had waited for him.

And so the Child told his disciples to fetch some food but all they had was five loaves and a couple of frankfurters. So he took the bread and the frankfurters and blessed them and told his disciples to feed the multitudes. And when all had eaten their fill, the scraps filled twelve baskets.

Thence he travelled west to Mount Sarkozy. Even the beauteous Princess Carla of the tribe of the Bruni was struck by awe and she was great in love with the Child, but he was tempted not.

On the Seventh Day he walked across the Channel of the Angles to the ancient land of the hooligans. There he was welcomed with open arms by the once great prophet Blair and his successor, Gordon the Leper, and his successor, David the Golden One.

And suddenly, with the men appeared the archangel Gabriel and the whole host of the heavenly choir, ranks of cherubim and seraphim, all praising God and singing: “Yes, We Can.”